A series of biblical readings and prayers from David L. Miller, senior pastor of St. Timothy Lutheran Church, Naperville, IL. David is the former editor of The Lutheran magazine and Director of Spiritual Formation at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Matthew 13:44'The kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which someone has found; he hides it again, goes off in his joy, sells everything he owns and buys the field.

ReflectionWe understand nothing of this until we have known freedom of heart, the kind of freedom that stirs us to surrender ourselves, risking who we are or what we have to give ourselves to a grace and beauty we have discovered--or which has discovered us.

So much of life commences with calculated care. Closely counting costs, whether in time or money or energy, we ask if each new activity, commitment or relationship in our path is “worth it.” Do we want to spend ourselves, our precious time, or protect our resources for something later?

It’s a safe way to live, and much of our living requires such care. But there is an element of soul that cannot and will not be fulfilled, its joy stunted, until we know a beauty, a grace, a cause, a holy love to which we can give ourselves without counting the cost, our hearts knowing that this is right, this belongs to the essence of my soul and life itself.

The freest human souls I have ever known are those who had found--or been found by--the treasure in the field, the pearl of great price which moved them beyond lives of bean-counting calculation to act, to love, to given themselves to a great love even though it cost them pain, or perhaps the various currencies our society most values--money, status and power.

In this culture, we sometimes have trouble understanding those who choose to step away from high-powered posts, moneyed positions or safe, easy lives for other values, commitments and joys that are not so easily enumerated.

Jesus did, and he invites us to listen to the depth of our hearts. The key to the treasure is in the field of our souls. There is a pearl of great price hidden there that, once discovered, draws us beyond the calculated life to one of joyful freedom--and perhaps risk and pain, too, which are always part of loving.

Before I graduated seminary, I, like all ministry students of that place and age, faced a panel of faculty members who could ask anything to test our knowledge and fitness for ministry. I have forgotten all but two questions from that inquisition, and only one is perfectly clear: “What would you die for? For what are you willing to go to the wall?”

Age 27 and foolish, I muttered an absurdity about a theological doctrine with which I had recently been infatuated. I’m surprised they didn’t laugh in my face. But a few years later I met people who truly did and would go to the wall for a holy love, a cause, a person God had given them to love.

Then I knew: My seminary inquisitor had asked me to name the pearl of great price, the treasure in a field that was so essential to my soul, my heart, my love that it freed me to rise above a life of mere calculation to give my life freely in service of more than my own petty concerns.

Find your freedom, the place where you don’t count the costs, and you will know yourself, you will know God and the treasure which the Loving Mystery gives you.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Matthew 13:31-33He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air can come and shelter in its branches.' He told them another parable, 'The kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour till it was leavened all through.'

ReflectionFor hours we sat in an emergency room last night. Our names are not important, only our anxieties and hope.

Two women, one man, waiting to find if a troubled body and soul could find the help needed to birth a new life (please God) in the stuffy box of a room where we sat and felt the walls close in on us.

Hours dragged on, medical staff made promises of updates seldom fulfilled, and we stood by, sometimes praying, sometimes working our phones, periodically stroking and reassuring the soul in the bed that she’d done the right thing to come to this room where agitation and sickness only seemed to grow as the hours wore on.

But we were there, standing by, doing what little we could, waiting for breakthrough moments when our words might penetrate the thicket of emotions binding the soul who made the difficult decision to come … finally … to the admission that life is too much too hard to handle all alone.

There were a few moments when our blessings and reassurance made it through, and this morning I am certain we are glad we stood there, providing presence if nothing else, because we cared for one troubled soul and for the mysterious leaven of God in our hearts moving us to hope that something new, fresh and alive might come.

Sometimes it’s hard to hope that the future can be different from the present. Troubles bear such crushing weight upon human hearts that there seems no way out. Trapped in the human condition, however that is for us, the future stretches out, holding nothing more inviting than the dismal repetition of present bondage.

But leaven was stirred into our souls somewhere, sometime, raising in us the desire to be in this dingy, cramped room, loving as best we can. The leaven worked its magic in us; we know not how, exactly. So why not now, again, here?